Yearly Archives: 2008

Uhm, too bad they dumped you off on the folding table, Baby Jesus, after the church Christmas pageant. You look like you’re having a nice nap. Maybe you drank too much wine and just passed out. Nice swaddling clothes.

Henry made it through the 4:00 p.m. show as an angel – without having a meltdown or trying to poop his pants whilst the three wise men entered the manger.

From Real Pie Media sent over what I think may be one of the best industry Christmas presents I’ve gotten in years: Internet Gloves. The handcrafted, fingerless knit gloves (they arrived along with the knitter’s business card) was accompanied by a Mad Men themed guidebook to enjoying “. . . the warmth of gloves while still having the freedom to surf the internet [sic] at professional-level speeds.” Favorite headline: “PowerPoint Is More Effective with Jazz Hands.”

Here’s a photo of the Internet Gloves on my desk, also featuring my newly arrived 2009 R.E.M. fan club calendar under the paperweight I got at a King Tut exhibit at LACMA.

Caro and I stopped by an open house at the GOOD offices on Melrose. Fabulous hipsters, and some really creative office ideas. In the lobby is a giant wall map of Los Angeles, with Post-It Notes with all sorts of interesting and trivial facts and blurbs, some simply for the sake of humor, others marking sites, buildings, events and reviews of food joints (Baby Blues on Lincoln near my office was marked as “Great BBQ” – you can read reviews here).

It was funny how the Target ad looked like a panda head as it was being put up over a Kung Fu Panda ad. Bizarre ad coincidence. This was outside the new LA Live venue the other night. I forgot I had it on my phone.

Caro’s good friend at A.E.G. invited us to the gala opening of L.A. Live. I think the Los Angeles Times got it right in their review: the garish, monolithic venue is hardly the kind of development that has any appeal to anyone living nearby, and has the feel of a tacky cruise ship, but overall it’s impressive in scale. It definitely ties the Staples Center more closely to the urban grid, and the view of the new Ritz Carlton/JW Marriott tower as you approach from Olympic is pretty impressive (if you find a skyscraper with a big edifice impressive).

The plaza was screaming with ads, and blaring music, but then again there was a huge event going on. We went to the taping of the CBS Grammy Nominations Concert. I was psyched to see the Foo Fighters, although you knew they’d only be playing one song. Celine Dion wasn’t bad (anyone who sings that well is interesting to see live for a song) – same for Mariah Carey. Taylor Swift couldn’t sing her way out of a paper bag. Luckily, the Jonas Brothers didn’t sing, since every time they moved their heads a few dozen girls who squeel until their heads were about to pop off. They’re like The Beatles, only irrelevant and forgettable.

After, we went to the VIP area of Club Nokia and the Jonas Brothers followed us there. Janet Jackson was also there, with a bodyguard or ten. Some other random music types. Great club space though. Both the theater and club are great performance spaces. There is also a Grammy Museum, which we didn’t catch. I think we’ll wait until someone comes to visist before we check that out.

The oddest thing was that the entrance to the museum opening party was across from the vents from the ESPNZone restaurant kitchen. So as you walked up to the entrance you couldn’t help but get your hair blown about by a blast of hot fried buffalo wing air. Miss Jackson, nice to meet you – you smell like a curly fry . . .

Coincidentally, this was one of the original locations of DDB Los Angeles, the company that I work for. There are still a few folks (and you know who you are) who worked in this building before the office moved to the Brentwood (where I worked briefly), and before we moved into our much photographed current digs in the Frank Gehry “Binoculars” building in Venice Beach.

It’s across the street from LACMA, and also happens to be the building my gym is in. They just renovated the lobby.

Shopping for a bargain at the Target in Inglewood today, I passed by this landmark riding up La Cienega on the way home. I had to go to the Target on Century Boulevard to pick up up some ckearance stuff that was sold out closer to home. That’s right, along with the rest of the country, I’m apparently willing to go to no end in search of a bargain. Amazingly, there were three Wii Fits on the shelf. I should have bought all of them, but I grabbed one in case someone I knew had a hard time getting one and then left a couple for some other lucky person to find. I thought for a moment about snapping them up and selling on eBay, but then that seemed, well, lame. Hopefully some deserving kid gets it from the Claus.